


The Nothing Girl

by Princess_Claire_Fey



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Gen, Mental Health Issues, Suicide, hopelessness, psychiatry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-29
Updated: 2020-01-29
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:14:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22282438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Princess_Claire_Fey/pseuds/Princess_Claire_Fey
Summary: They took everything from Azula, except her life. That bit was up to her.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 32





	The Nothing Girl

It had been ninety-seven days since Azula had last tasted freedom. Since anything had been right with the world. Since domination had been at her fingertips, since she had any respect or dignity. Since that damned Agni Kai. Since she had seen her mother in the mirror for the first time. (No mirrors in her padded cell of course, but that agni-damned whore found other ways to visit, to castigate her daughter.) ninety-seven days since the comet, since the last time she had seen the outside, the motherland, the Fire Nation.  
  
Azula was good at counting, good at remembering. Her father had taught her to resist such tactics, spent many days in the dungeons subjecting her to many things designed to taint her very concept of time, her sense of being, her connection to herself. She knew it was ninety-seven thanks to her ally the sun of course. Circling the earth in an ever-predictable pattern. Every dawn she felt the rise of Agni, and every dusk the fall. There were no windows in her cell, but she did not need to see the sky to feel the sun's warmth in her bones, her very _chi_.  
  
Energy her captors were very afraid of, from the very start. For every one of those ninety-seven days Azula found herself inside a straightjacket, her arms held immobile by impossibly stubborn fabric. Her ankles equally secured by similarly unyielding leather. That didn't last long. On the third day she had breathed bright blue at a pathetic woman trying to spoonfeed her. To spoonfeed the great Firelord Azula. They didn't feed her for a day after that, until the following day they came in and Azula felt a prick in her arm and quite suddenly the connection to her life-force, her _chi_ was ravaged. She could still feel her element, but it was faint, subdued. When she tried to perform the breath of fire, all she could manage was a faint puff of red. Enough to be annoying, but no longer enough to be dangerous. Even still, sometimes they brought those damned chi-blockers in to disable her completely for a visitation. _Ty Lee!_  
  
She hadn't felt any more pricks after that. They were putting the poison in her food, she surmised.  
  
The poison didn't just disconnect her from the elements, it subdued her mind also. She felt tired, always. Even moving her head to look at something was a troublesome affair. She felt lightheaded and dizzy when they made her stand for an exam or to wash her. Sometimes she drooled on the straightjacket. The great Firelord Azula, drooling on her restraints in the madhouse. It made her want to laugh.  
  
Of course, she had been a fool to breath fire on that woman. The doctors _were_ right, of course, she had been hysterical, Azula could acknowledge that now. But it was pointless to attempt to seek reconciliation, after all she was a madwoman, a master manipulator. Every attempt to convince her supposed helpers that she was lucid was just another attempt to escape her prison, not a real improvement. Which was true, she supposed. If you bend the definition of crazy enough, even the simplest things make you mad - like believing in the march of civilization, supporting father's plan to scorch Ba Sing Se, standing by her claim to the throne. It wasn't about her mad ravings on the day of the comet anymore, it was about making her a goody suck-up like _Zu-zu_.  
  
The Doctor assigned to her case was right. She didn't want to improve. Not if _improvement_ meant throwing away everything she was, her very sense of being. Azula believed in her cause, her captors would never get her to defect, never get her to betray her nation and her lord father.  
  
Oh, and did they incessantly question her about _him_. These men who claimed to be healers seemed to think her childhood defined everything about her, that her father had fed her lies for his own gain and that had made her ill. Something about an 'unhealthy family model' and 'psychological abuse'. It was true, Ozai was no saint. He was complacent, foolish, at times. Perhaps even selfish. But father's dedication to Azula was beyond question. He had prepared her to be the perfect ruler, the perfect heir, the perfect warrior. The pressure he had placed on her, the things he had taught her, the things he had _done to her_... all necessary. Zu-zu wanted to hide from that simple truth, that ruling, that being a good soldier required sacrifice.  
  
Azula had no regrets other than losing. 

* * *

  
Even though she was exhausted, Azula kept counting. One hundred and fifty-two suns since she became nothing. Since she failed miserably against her brother.  
  
He had stopped visiting. The doctors had said it wasn't doing any good and eventually zu-zu decided to heed their advice. Good for him. Trying to give your enemies a second chance is a weakness, after all - and if he was to be a strong Firelord he'd have to learn that. He was so adorably genuine, Zu-zu. He spoke of many things on his visits, things that the doctors and _Mai_ didn't want him to say but he said anyway. She could see what that bitch saw in him now: as long as you put on a smile and said nice things, a man like Zuko could never betray you. He was too foolish to even know how, let alone to want to in the first place.  
  
Of course Mai had stopped coming even before Zuko did. As soon as she stopped being amusing - which didn't take long, what with the poison and all.  
  
_Ah, yes, the poison._ The staff were slow, but eventually they noticed Azula's attempts to resist its effects. A largely futile affair, she found, but that didn't stop them from upping the dose.  
  
The lethargy was unbearable. The forgotten princess could feel herself becoming more useless, her muscles degrading with constant inactivity. Years of warrior's training and muscle memory fading into nothing. She wanted nothing more than to have a wide open space to practice, to fight, to move, to do _anything_. Her doctor said she was too dangerous. It didn't matter anyway, because all Azula did these days was sleep. She always felt sleepy, even after waking up. Her eyes hurt. Her body ached as if from exhaustion. One time she slept so long she almost lost count of the days. Couldn't have been less than fifteen hours, she surmised. The orderlies wouldn't let her sleep longer than that of course, she needed her 'medicine'. She told them to fuck off and stick a needle into her.  
  
Perhaps if it would have been bearable if that _slut_ wasn't tormenting her.  
  
Yes, _Ty Lee_. The doctor insisted she was the key to one of her laundry list of problems, and that forming a friendship not based on fear and cruelty would help her recover. And of course, she was _happy to help_.  
  
It was torture. She did all the talking, predictably, since the poison subdued Azula to the point where speaking... _no longer seemed worth it._ And the acrobat was happy to pick up the slack. She just kept talking, about all the things the nothing princess would never have. A life, a purpose, freedom. _Colors_. Azula never appreciated fucking _Colors_ until she realized just how few she got to see. She talked about everything, from her training with the Traitor Warriors to a pretty thing she saw. Until she lashed out.  
  
_Traitor. Liar. Slut. Whore. Bastard._  
  
_I hope you burn in the pits of Agni._  
  
A small sample, she had called her former ally possibly every insult, every slur that existed. Just like she did the first time Ty Lee came, back when Azula was still in hysterics. Things weren't the same after that. Now the acrobat seemed just as subdued as the nothing princess, despite the fact that she still came. Why? She could never understand the traitor's reasoning, no matter how many times she explained. If Ty Lee really wanted to help her, she shouldn't have betrayed her in the first place.

* * *

  
Two hundred and fourteen.  
  
Now Ty Lee rarely came anymore. Mother had stopped appearing. The Doctor kept up his ever-present sessions, but he wasn't even trying to put up the illusion of an effort anymore. He came because he was paid, and he left when he was no longer. Not that they had a reason to care. Why should they? Compassion is a weakness.  
  
Not that it would have mattered of course, she had blown that chance. Her pride that had prevented her from even keeping the appearance of capitulation had condemned her to permanent disbelief. Nobody would believe the sudden change of heart. Nobody would even give her so much as an inch of freedom.  
  
Sometimes Azula blamed it on the poison. But that was a lie. It was her failure, her mistake of not playing the game. Not trying hard enough to even attempt to construct a narrative they'd believe.  
  
' _I'm a people person_ '  
  
_Not anymore._  
  
She rarely felt like eating anymore. Initially, they thought she was trying to resist the poison again. They gave up eventually, though. Every two days a man in white would come to give her a prick on the arm.  
  
She was cold. Her body hungered, but she just didn't want to eat. Her stomach could growl all it wanted. The food tasted foul. She was really cold. She asked for a blanket, but they wouldn't give it to her.  
  
Azula wished she could just sleep all the time. Being awake was a chore. Even talking to herself was boring. Daydreaming became torturous, every possible scenario reminding the nothing girl of her own inadequacy. She hated waking up.  
  
Zuko should have just killed her.

* * *

  
"Let's try something different."  
  
Two hundred and.... _I can't remember_ thirty...one?  
  
"Certain superiors of mine have expressed concerns" Two hundred days ago she may have cared. One hundred days ago she might have laughed. Fifty, she may have been _able to_ laugh. The nothing girl remained silent as he spoke. "It's clear to me, and them that you've been regressing and haven't benefited under-"  
  
She stopped listening. More boring talk about the primitive study of psychology. Some new kind of therapy that was more boring than the next, most-  
  
"Azula?"  
  
Her sluggish golden eyes met his.  
  
"I said we're going to try removing some of your restraints."  
  
Her expression didn't change. Somehow, she didn't care that her hundred-day-old wish was being granted.  
  
"There will be precau-"

* * *

  
Two hundred and thirty-six.  
  
For the first time, Azula felt like she had purpose. Now she had a way out of her prison.  
  
The guards that circled her whenever her straitjacket wasn't on were acutely aware of her plan, of course. It was the only plan. The only one that made sense for a nothing girl like her.  
  
But Azula was smart. She waited until it was just time for her injection, when the poison was at its weakest. She picked all of her two meals a day clean. Doctor for once was happy with her progress. And so was Azula, though she doubted they could agree on the reasons.  
  
The guards weren't fast enough. Their fault for giving her something ceramic, really. They didn't really believe that the prideful Firelord Azula would actually do it.  
  
They didn't know the truth, but she did. Azula was nothing, and that's exactly why she needed to do it.


End file.
